Copying notes

In this tour, you will learn how to use Melodyne’s command set for the copying and pasting of notes.

Inserting one note

Let’s begin by copying a single note: select a note followed by Copy from the Edit menu or the context menu.

Move the playback cursor to the destination by clicking/dragging in the bar ruler.

Select Paste from the Edit menu or the context menu. If the time grid is active, the note is inserted on the quarter note closest to the playback cursor. If the original note was slightly offset from the nearest quarter note, the same offset will be preserved. The length of the note will remain unchanged.

If, however, the time grid has been deactivated or set to Seconds, the beginning of the note will be perfectly aligned with the playback cursor. Again, its length will remain unchanged.

Replacing a note

If, after copying a note, you select another note prior to pasting, the selected note will be replaced. In the context of adjacent notes, the pasted note will be time-stretched or -compressed until its length is the same as that of the note it is replacing. The note pasted will, however, retain its original pitch. Here, for example, if you were to copy the selected note, select a second note…

… and then paste, the second note would disappear. The note copied would occupy the same space in time, beginning at the same instant and lasting the same amount of time as the vanished note, but would sound at the same pitch as it did before. Of course, you will be able to drag the new note subsequently to any pitch you like, including that of the note replaced. When replacing notes in this way, the time grid settings are of no relevance.

Copying and pasting multiple notes

If several notes are copied and pasted simultaneously, the following rules apply: If we begin with these notes and copy them…

… if no other notes are selected and the time grid activated, when pasted both notes (as we saw earlier with an individual note) will be inserted at positions beginning with the quarter-note grid line closest to the playback cursor. The length of the notes will remain unchanged; the existing offset from the quarter note will be retained and the result will look like this:

If the time grid is not active or is set to Seconds, the beginning of the first pasted note will coincide exactly with the playback cursor. Again, the original length of the notes will be preserved:

If, prior to pasting, another note is selected, it will be deleted when pasting occurs and the pasted notes will be stretched or squeezed to fill the space it has left. Again, the copied notes will retain their original pitches.

If, prior to pasting, multiple adjacent notes are selected, these will be deleted in the same way, and the pasted notes stretched or squeezed to occupy the same time interval as the deleted selection. If, for example, these are the notes selected:

… the result after pasting will look like this: